FILE - This undated image shows a frame from a video released Friday, Oct. 3, 2014, by Islamic State militants that purports to show the militant who beheaded of taxi driver Alan Henning . A British-accented militant who has appeared in beheading videos released by the Islamic State group in Syria over the past few months bears "striking similarities" to a man who grew up in London, a Muslim lobbying group said Thursday Feb. 26, 2015. Mohammed Emwazi has been identified by news organizations as the masked militant more commonly known as "Jihadi John."(Photo: Uncredited, AP)
A U.S. drone strike in Syria late Thursday<span style="color: Red;">*</span>targeted the infamous masked Islamic State executioner named "Jihadi John," the Pentagon said.
But it's unclear if he was killed in the strike. He is<span style="color: Red;">*</span>known for his brutal beheading of several Western hostages in Syria.
The U.S. military said early Friday<span style="color: Red;">*</span>it was still working to determine whether the strike killed the militant, a British citizen whose real name is Mohamed Emwazi.
Officially, the Pentagon would only confirm that the strike had Emwazi in its sights. "U.S. forces conducted an airstrike . . . targeting Mohamed Emwazi, also known as "Jihadi John," Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook said on Thursday.
"We are assessing the results of tonight's operation and will provide additional information as and where appropriate," Cook said.
Emwazi is believed by the U.S. to have participated in the videos showing the murders of U.S. journalists Steven Sotloff and James Foley, U.S. aid worker Abdul-Rahman Kassig, British aid workers David Haines and Alan Henning, Japanese journalist Kenji Goto, and a number of other hostages.
Emwazi, 26, graduated from the University of Westminster in London with a degree in computer programming in 2009. Born in Kuwait and raised in London, he left the British capital and became a star salesman for a Kuwaiti IT company,
the Guardian newspaper reported earlier this year.
His radicalization may have started after numerous run-ins with security officials, who he told human rights officials were targeting him because he is Muslim.
At some point as a young adult, he traveled to Tanzania for a safari with friends but was detained by authorities, according to the British-based human rights group CAGE. He was taken to a police station, stripped to his underwear and held in a cell for 24 hours, according to a CAGE case file released in February.
Friends of Emwazi said they believed Emwazi became radicalized because of the Tanzania incident.
"Jihadi John" — nicknamed that by hostages — began appearing in Islamic State videos in August 2014. His grisly videos show him dressed in a black hood shrouding his face and brandishing a large knife in front of his victims, who are dressed in orange jumpsuits. In the videos he makes<span style="color: Red;">*</span>threats to the U.S.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>and other Western nations.
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